The most importance difference is that lefties are, on average, significantly shorter lived than righties. No one really knows why but it may relate to the theory that left handedness is a byproduct of pre-delivery trauma in the womb.

"Twins theory: this theory postulates that left-handed individuals were originally part of an identical twin pair, with the right-handed twin fetus failing to develop early in development. Although Australian researchers have debunked[5] the related Vanishing twin theory, it is yet unexplained why twin children have a high frequency of left-handedness / right-handedness in the pair."

And very confusing when you are playing guitars with them in a musical group. Weird mirror image type of thing that is off putting.

I read an interesting article the other day that said that Kurt Cobain was either left-handed or ambidextrious (sp?), but he chose to play the guitar right handed. He had scoliosis which curved in the same way, so playing right-handed increased his pain, hence heroin addiction, hence . . .

I'm not sure it's been studied, but I've gathered that left-handed people tend to be more creative and more highly represented in very creative fields, like writing. (For example, in the commentary for the Simpsons episode where Flanders opened the Leftorium, one of the commenters said that the writing staff there is (or was) at least 1/2 left-handed.)

Both my brothers were lefties, although the youngest was more mixed. He wrote left. In basketball he dribbled right and shot left. In baseball, he fielded left and batted right. I learned to do a lot of things left handed so that I could compete with my brothers, both younger, with them using their dominate hand and me not.

My youngest daughter is mixed handed although she's pretty much converted to right handedness now. She could dribble a basketball equally well with either hand from the start. At first she would shoot with whichever hand the ball happened to be in at the time. She had to make a conscious decision to become a right handed shooter.

I remember how early in his presidency Barack Obama was signing a bill into law, surrounded by reporters and photographers, and said, "You need to start getting used to this", referring to his curled-around left-handed signing.

I thought, "Seriously?!? Half of US presidents are left-handed. They *are* used to it. You think you're the first left-handed president they've ever seen?!?"

For some reason that one small moment has stuck in my mind as an early example of this president's obsessive narcissism. And yes I'm a member of what I call "the invisible tribe" although I play guitar, golf, and throw frisbee with the right.

Religion has had much to do w/ left handed prejudice. With nuns being endangered, the "converts" from gauche to adroit will decline. There will be more southpaws in our grandkids generation.

There has only been one Major league southpaw catcher[backup] and no southpaw infielders, except first basemen, in my lifetime. That's not prejudice..it's geometry. When I had very talented kids I coached in baseball they of course wanted to play ss. I would explain to them if they were going to continue to play in upper levels they had to play first or the outfield. Most resisted, a few smart ones got it.

Religion has had much to do w/ left handed prejudice. With nuns being endangered, the "converts" from gauche to adroit will decline. There will be more southpaws in our grandkids generation.

Disagree.

The Blonde and her eldest brother went through the public school system where they lived and every effort was bent to make them righties. It only partially succeeded with Herself and didn't at all with her brother.

Frankly, it sounds like one of those John Dewey-esque measures to make everybody good little sheep who will do as told.

I'm pretty much dominant in right handedness for writing and mechanical things like food chopping stirring etc>

However in music (especially), arts, crafts I am either left handed or ambidextrous. You can't play the guitar, piano or many wind instruments without using your left hand. In guitar, you often use your left hand on the frets much more extensively than the right. I'm sure much of that is just due to practice.

We're watching our 2-year-old son closely as he switches and switches. One minute he'll be coloring with his right hand, but then the next he'll be eating with his left. When he kicks, it's usually with his right foot, but drawing and eating are a definite mixed bag.

Neither of his two older sisters or older brother did that. I'm not a huge fan of little league baseball (sooooo boring) but if I end up with a southpaw, you can bet I'm going to let him play as much as he wants. Daddy wants to retire early...

My first college girlfriend was ambidextrous. She could write one sentence with one hand and write a completely different sentence, upside-down and bacwards with the other hand. Or write a sentence with one while doing math with the other. She had a double major: fine art (painting) and astrophysics.

There's a lot of left-handedness in my family - myself, my older sister (though not my younger one), two aunts, one grandmother and a slew of cousins. I wonder if it isn't one of those recessive-gene traits, like blue eyes - I find it had to believe in pre-birth trauma in *all* those cases. As for low birth weight, I was an eleven-pounder.

Does anyone still try to forcibly switch lefties into using their right hands? It was done to my grandmother (born 1895) but not to my aunts (born 1917 and 1920) and certainly not to any of us who came along later.

ScottM, Teach him how to pitch. No breaking pitches, only fastball and changeups until he hits 12-14, depending on how his body matures. Then hire Scott Boras as his agent. He's a prick/asshole but the guy you want negotiating for you.

I'm left handed. We have learned to live in a world that in ways both subtle and overt is not designed for us. In baseball, you soon learn that you're marginal. Sure they let a few of us become pitchers, but they're just tokens. Most of us are destined to watch the clouds in right field. And golf? It's not just that left handed clubs are non existent. The courses themselves are designed to favor righties. When's the last time you saw a dogleg to the left? They don't have signs posted on the lawn saying Lefties Not Welcome. That's because they don't need them. We know.....Boxing is the only sport where a leftie has a true advantage. You have a quicker jab and can generally land more blows than your opponent....If there is a higher incidence of schizophrenia among left handers, it is because right handed people drive us crazy.

She could write one sentence with one hand and write a completely different sentence, upside-down and bacwards

LOL..I'm pretty good a writing upside down and backwards (mirror image actually). My parents were printers and ran a small newspaper years ago (late 50"s). All the lead type and individual letters for the headlines are upside down and backwards in the platten press. My job, at about 8 years old, was to set the headlines by picking out the individual letters based on sizes (ems and picas). Place them in the trays and lightly pound with a mallet and wooden block to set them at all the same level.

Upside down and backwards writing and drawing of diagrams was something I used quite often in my financial practice to illustrate concepts to my clients.

Also a pretty handy skill in school reading other student's papers who were sitting across the desk from me.

Bearing - my mom and dad and all 4 kids were lefties. I married a lefty (he's the only one in his family of 5 kids). We have two kids - neither one of whom are lefties. According to the article I was not stressed enough during pregnancy and my mother must have been majorly stressed throughout a good 15 years of her life. DBQ - I am totally creeped out! It's too early for that!

ScootM and edutcher, I'm just trying to fit in this really cool club. Over @ Troopers it's fun and laughs and uncensored. I just don't want to be censored again here @ the really smart blog so I'm trying to get on the queens good side. Am I doing it wrong? I'm just so fearful of clutter and boring I'm not myself.

President Garfield could also write Latin with one hand and Greek with the other simultaneously.

I can't do that: they're both Greek to me.

I don't think I'm especially weird because of the lefthandedness. I define the norm. In politics, I'm always in the exact center. I was born in the exact center of america (Iowa). So I don't think the lefthandedness has tilted me much. If you want to ask if you are normal, ask how closely do I resemble Kirby Olson?

Lefty pitcher here with a pretty good fastball, but remember you also need height. I am only 5'7" and even though I threw hard, it would have been much better if I were 6'2". You also need good size hands.

I write left, throw left but play golf and guitar right handed. I have never seen leftiness as being much of a disadvantage, I guess I am pretty used to using my right hand for alot of things.

Well gents, As I said when Joe Frazier passed..I really loved his style. And Joe kept comin'. You're policing the commenters and I actually abide that and think that's the way it should work. But, I still got some shit to get off my chest. I would have your backs if the roles were reversed, believe me I would. And, remember this started w/ me having fellow commenters backs when they were shit on. It wasn't about me to start; it was about our brothers and sisters. You could be next..don't kid yourselves.

Phil Mickelson and Bubba Watson are exceptions on the pro tour, lefties who play left-handed. Most left-handed golfers who can convert to right-handed do so. It's a big advantage when your control arm is also your dominant arm. People who are very right-handed tend to let their control arm get overpowered by their power arm.

My dad is a southpaw and was forced to use his right hand in school. He still can't tell his left from his right- in the car my Mom would say "turn right" and he would turn left, then she would say, "the OTHER right!" She can't tell the cardinal directions so driving with them was always fun.

I noticed that, although right-handed I do certain things with my left hand because that's how my dad did them.

edutcher, Yes you have, and thanks. It did come out of right field, however. Alpha would come out of left field..J from the bowels of the stadium. I may need an anger management seminar, or some valium..or both. Be patient w/ me..I'm a reasonable man.

I'm ambidextrous, so I guess now I have to go see if I have any neurological disorders.

Well, it does appear that your brain is in a hole in the ground....you might start checking that out for problems :-)

@ John M Auston.I mean as a person playing the guitar with someone of the opposite handedness. It is just somewhat off putting to look at their fingering and try to emulate it or copy the chording when they are lefty and I'm righty.

I am trying to show a friend how to knit at this time and she is a lefty. It is really hard for both of us.

More often than not, my right hand (I'm right-handed with a right-handed guitar) is far more busy than my left. My brother, who is left-handed, needed a left-handed guitar even though my father had a righty in the house.

I never got this. Aren't both hands pretty busy playing the guitar? Why does it matter which one is which?

It is a visual thing for me.

If I don't know the song or the chords and am just jumping in, I usually look at the other person's hands while they are playing and interpret the chords and adjust for capo-ing or bar chording to be able to pick up the key and the chords. Once you have gone through a few bars you don't need to be visual anymore and you just play by 'ear'.

Jumping into a group playing, they don't generally announce the key they are playing in. You have to guess.

It is just more difficult, for me at least, when it is a lefty I'm playing with. Not impossible, just another layer of mental interpretation.

I can't speak to piano or clarinet much since I'm not very good and haven't played those in quite a few years, but generally you just start off in the key and can play along by ear.

Key of C and you have it down. Or Key of A flat....because music is mathematical and generally falls into patterns, sets, chord groupings etc.

I'm mixed dominant, I favor the right side for some gross-motor skills, like golf and baseball. With most fine motor skills I'm a lefty. But I want to be the first on this thread to say that I run with both feet.

Stu[id studies. Left-handed-ness is inherited. I have it. Though I'm also right-eye dominant. And, except for writing, I prefer my right hand ...let's say ... to hold a pair of scissors.

My son is totally right-handed. Though his uncle, on his dad's side is very left handed. Even when he's using surgical tools.

If you've got the "mixed" quality ... between hand and eye ... An orthopedist in New York City. Who was a team orthopedist to all the major teams. Used to have players tested ... to see which eye was dominant.

If it was "mixed" ... they "forced the covering of the right eye, in the hopes to shift EVERYTHING LEFT. But you could only do this with left handed players.

(When my son was a baby, and I'd hand him a utensil ... which I was doing with my left hand ... Because I use my left hand, too, for eating. He'd still reach for it with his RIGHT HAND!

My mother also told me that when she questioned my pediatrician ... He took out his pocket watch and held it up to me. When I reached for it with my left hand; he told my mom I'd be left-handed.

My mom thinks she might have preferred writing with her left hand ... but very early ... in school ... the teachers would hit your hand with a ruler ... forcing kids to be right handed.

My mom's handwriting was spectacular! Me? Besides holding paper on the desk, cockeyed. My handwriting suffers because it slants opposite the way most people are taught to write script.

I'd be surprised if more than 10% of the public is left handed.

So, how do you do a study where 90% of the population prefers their right hand?

Don't you remember school desks? You ever see one where the "tray" part was on the left?

To this day, as my next brother approaches 60, I remind him that he is sinister. And, set the table backwards for him, etc. He has long used the left-handed U.S. Presidents as a counter, but now I can point out that he is claiming affinity with President Obama. That is maybe enough to get him to try to do things right handedly.

Sorry, you got the completely wrong meaning from what I was trying to say. I completely get the difficulty of trying to jump in and play along with someone who's a mirror image of you--the thing I don't get is the need for a lefty guitar in the first place (hence the analogy to woodwinds and keyboards.)

Since we're discussing why some people are right handed and some left, why don't we discuss why some people can sing and others can't? Does that make any sense to anyone at all? Can someone explain that to me?

@ Kirby Olsen: I don't think I'm especially weird because of the lefthandedness.

I think you may have left out the semicolon after "think."

My brother is a lefty and watching him is undoubtedly responsible for every physical frailty I may ever develop. There is a natural "conflict" between brothers; handedness disputes provides a humorous expression of what could otherwise be a bit nasty.

I know I must be a natural righty because for many years (decades?) the only reliable way I could tell right from left was by simulating throwing something -- the hand that reacted was my right hand.

I taught myself to switch-hit in baseball and found that I was actually better that way. Perhaps the control/dominant arm thing, but also having the dominant arm pulling the bat "backhand" seemed to give more natural force.

My parents were right-handed with normal vision but produced 3 extremely near-sighted lefties (and no others). I pull weeds, shuffle paper, and throw frisbees with my right. I remember going through grade school with the left edge of my hand black from pencil graphite. They wouldn't let me do the wrap-around writing.

My sister is the most mixed and artistic, and somewhat ADHD. She and I also inherited the family depression gene, but hopefully not the pancreatic cancer one from the same g-grandmother.

When it really counted, in killing and maiming people in hand-to-hand combat, lefties had an advantage. Because in training, fighters got "instinctive muscle memory" to block the right-hand sword, knife, or club of their enemy - counter to the left, weaker target of the enemy. That training made left-handed people - who grew up training against righties - afforded a lethal edge.

Righties rather resented being wounded, friends dying, or them fearing dying themselves at the hand of a Lefty - so cultures attached "sinister connotations", made the left hand religiously or ritually unclean. And conventional practices over societies all over the world and throughout history were built around the left hand as not the "go-to" one.

Some righties were trained as Lefties to capitalize on the advantage, (Raphael Nadal in tennis does everything right-handed except play tennis...And conversely, because of societal preferences many natural lefties were trained early to go right-handed to be more accepted.)

Then you have certain people that are naturally ambidextrous. Of Presidents, only James Garfield was a true one.

I was just listening to a left-wing radio show which was re-broadcasting a portion of Obama's speech where he trashed "trickle down economics" and "rugged individualism". Good luck with that 1980s campaign O-Bummer. It sure worked for Mondale & Dukaka.

I was just listening to a left-wing radio show which was re-broadcasting a portion of Obama's speech where he trashed "trickle down economics" and "rugged individualism". Good luck with that 1980s campaign O-Bummer. It sure worked for Mondale & Dukaka.

I take it they didn't mention his gaffe today saying that he was glad to be back in Texas when he was, in fact, in Kansas?

I once read that there are two types of left-handers, i.e. they are wired differently neurologically.

Supposedly, you can tell the difference because one type of lefty writes with his/her hand in the "normal" righty-style position and creates lovely cursive letters, while the other perhaps true lefty writes in the crippled chicken claw style and is capable of only rendering smudged Martian hieroglyphics.

the thing I don't get is the need for a lefty guitar in the first place (hence the analogy to woodwinds and keyboards.)

I think it has something to do with the internal construction of the guitar (acoustic ones anyway) and the stress that the gauge of the strings puts on the neck and bridge. It can eventually damage the guitar and the acoustic sound is not the same.

Not to mention the pick guard would be on the wrong side of the guitar (the top instead of the bottom where it is needed) if you just flip the guitar from right to left.

Sometimes I also enjoy putting my right hand on the base of my hog in order to see the entire length. I will examine the hog in this position for a minute or longer, perhaps with head tilted.

While I am doing this I like to use a "polishing" technique rotating counter clock wise on the just the head only. I may spit on it and open my piss slit for added drama.

This could be followed up by the using the left hand to hit or bang the hog on the right palm. This produces both visual and oral stimulation. The sound of the slap coupled with the actual slap can provide fleeting entertainment.

Guitars need to be set up asymmetrically to play in tune. The bass strings need to be longer than the treble strings. Yes, acoustic guitars usually have asymmetric bracing on the top and if you just flip the strings the top can warp. (Been there, done that, got the firewood.) On electric guitars the knobs, whammy bar are on the wrong side. Of course, Hendrix learned to use this to his advantage and one good source of lefty Stratocasters are the ones purchased by rightys who wanted to play like Jimi.

Carole Herman is a long, but sometimes very interesting read. There have been a couple of posts she has that I know meant she bored very deep into a story to get an insight. Others where she makes a very insightful and complex tie-in to another matter.

Carole - drives people crazy, but there's some gold nuggets in all that straw she pitch forks about.

DADvocate said..."Both my brothers were lefties, although the youngest was more mixed. He wrote left. In basketball he dribbled right and shot left. In baseball, he fielded left and batted right."

Lefties tend to be ambidextrous. I can dribble with both hands but a bit better with my right. Around the basket, I can shoot with either hand but outside I shoot with my left hand. I bat right but field left and throw left.

In order to write I not only use my left and curl it all around, but also use three fingrs plus thumb on the pencil. I notice many righties can get by with just the index finger and a thumb. If I wanted to poke a burglar in the eye with a pencil point I would use my right hand for strength, but for dexterity I would use the left. The left would definitely arrive in the perp's eyeball. I would turn sidewise and feint twice before the fatal injection. I think of this, but am 55 and have never used it. It's all purely theoretical, you know.

I got stung by a hornet in my teens and my right hand swelled up so much I thought my fingernails were going to fall off, so for a week or two I did everything left handed. The first day or two was rough. I kept sticking myself in the nose with a fork when I tried to eat.

Driving a car is tricky in countries like Britain and Japan where cars go in the left lane and the steering wheel is on the right. You have to shift gears left-handed, but the pedals are arranged so that you still work the clutch with your left foot and tap on the brakes and the gas with your right. The hardest thing is remembering to look left instead of right to see the rear view mirror.

`Bearing, i was the only one of eight kids to be left handed. But two of my own five kids are left handed, and they are the only two with my eye and hair color as well. As to the brutality of nuns ... every nun i had through Catholic grade school was nasty - some of them were among the most un-christian people i have ever encountered, actually

OK, my inability to get this point across has gone beyond amusing, and is now downright hilarous!

DBQ, I'm not talking about taking a regular guitar, string it the wrong way 'round, and playing it mirror image. I'm asking "Why do [some] lefty guitarists think they need to hold the instrument mirror image, when lefty pianists and woodwinds players don't have mirror-image instruments and [as far as I can tell] never thought they needed to?